


Mouths to feed

by Nary



Category: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Genre: Babies, Cuddling & Snuggling, Feeding, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, References to Past Child Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 19:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8933896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: Chime suddenly realized he had some urgent work he needed to do in the library when the question arose, and Moon didn't even think about asking Jade, knowing how busy she was.  Instead, with the five babies crawling all over him, he turned to the other consorts.  "Stone, could you help me feed them...?"Stone looked like Moon had just asked him to balance a table on his head - he could probably do it, but it was a very odd request.  But Ember, who had been lounging near the hearth in the consorts' bower, sat up.  "I could help, if you wanted," he said, a little shyly.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nightalp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightalp/gifts).



Everyone told Moon he didn't need to feed the fledglings, even though they had switched to meat broth. It could be a messy task, and the Arbora in the nursery had plenty of practice at making it less so, but Moon liked to do it at least once a day when he could. It made him feel closer to the new babies, and he enjoyed the time it required him to spend with them, helping to spoon tiny amounts of rich, nourishing broth into eager little mouths. It felt like it was something important he could do for them now, while they were still too small for him to teach them about things like flying or fighting or how to survive in the world outside the colony.

It was definitely a two-person job, though. Three was even better. The babies weren't quite big enough to sit up reliably on their own yet, or patient enough to stay in one place, so it helped to have one person to hold them, while the other handled the food. If there was a third, they could keep the remaining babies entertained. Usually Needle and Bead were able to help, but Bead had injured her back lifting a struggling Frost, and the mentors said she needed to rest it for a few days, to help it heal fully. And Needle had been drafted into helping out with gathering the crop of ripe berries, so she would be occupied until that was finished.

Chime suddenly realized he had some urgent work he needed to do in the library when the question arose, and Moon didn't even think about asking Jade, knowing how busy she was. Instead, with the five babies crawling all over him, he turned to the other consorts. "Stone, could you help me feed them...?"

Stone looked like Moon had just asked him to balance a table on his head - he could probably do it, but it was a very odd request. But Ember, who had been lounging near the hearth in the consorts' bower, sat up. "I could help, if you wanted," he said, a little shyly.

"All right," Moon agreed, wincing slightly as one of the babies squeezed his arm. The babies were at the stage where they could cling very hard to whatever they happened to grab hold of, and their little claws were starting to harden, so it could be quite uncomfortable when they were active and trying to move around, as they were right now. He held out his left arm and Ember plucked Solace and Rain off of it, depositing them safely in a pile of furs where they could roll around and explore without getting into trouble. Then he did the same for the other arm, removing Fern and Cloud - or at least trying to. Cloud objected to being removed from Moon's arm, and reacted by digging his claws in and shrieking at the top of his little lungs.

"Good luck," Stone said, and took off for one of his refuges away from everyone else, particularly screaming babies.

"If he doesn't want to let go, then here, take Sapphire instead," Moon suggested, but Ember shook his head. 

"It's all right," he murmured soothingly, as much to Moon as to Cloud. "You're safe, I've got you." He held Cloud's back in one hand and tickled his stomach with the other, and the baby hiccuped as his claws disengaged, releasing Moon from his grip. Ember stroked his stomach a little more, until his fussing quieted, and then set him down with the others before turning back to Moon, who was looking at him with a mix of surprise and suspicion.

"How did you do that?" he asked, as they settled in to feed Sapphire, Moon holding her while Ember steered the spoon. She curled up comfortably, but her big eyes were watchful.

"It's partly the tone of voice," Ember said, "but partly when they're this small, they still have reflexes that make them hold on and let go, and if you know what those are, you can sort of... manage them a little more easily." He glanced at Moon. "They outgrow it eventually. It wouldn't work on, say, Frost."

Moon nodded. One more thing he didn't know about Raksura - about his own clutch - that seemed to just come naturally to Ember. The younger consort didn't ever rub it in, or at least not deliberately, but Moon still felt inadequate from time to time. He concentrated instead on keeping Sapphire from squirming too much, stroking her little head to keep her at least facing in the direction of the food.

"I don't know if you heard, but Glow has a clutch on the way," Ember said casually. Moon knew that Ember had started taking up his responsibilities as a consort to get clutches with the Arbora. Apparently unlike Moon, he was naturally skilled at that too, because there were plenty of Arbora who had made it clear they were interested in having babies with him. 

"That's good," he said, biting back his initial response because it sounded too bitter. "We need more mentors, maybe there'll be one in her clutch." 

Ember nodded. "I'm happy about it, but it's a little strange too. I always imagined my first clutch would be with my queen..."

Moon paused. Surely Ember knew about what had happened to Pearl's other clutches. He wondered whether he should say something about it, but fortunately he was distracted by Sapphire burping, which was usually a good sign she was full. He patted her round belly and smiled as she wriggled and squeaked, and then set her over with the others, scooping up Rain next since he was closest. "Have you talked about it with Pearl?" he asked cautiously, once they had gotten comfortable to start feeding him.

"Some," Ember told him, guiding the spoonful of warm broth into Rain's eager mouth. "She says she still doesn't feel ready to have a clutch. But she told me we would someday - she said she wants to see what my babies will look like," he admitted, blushing a little.

There were two ways Moon could interpret that. One was in the way that Ember had clearly taken it - as a sign that Pearl wanted to mingle her bloodline with his and produce offspring. Another, more cynical voice in his head suggested that maybe Pearl was waiting to see how a few of Ember's Arbora clutches went first before making the attempt herself. To see if they were healthy, and how many of them survived. There were defenses you put up after enough losses - Moon knew about them all too well - and it would take time and trust to begin to lower them, if that was even possible.

"They'll be lovely," he said instead, not wanting to discourage Ember, who was obviously excited about having children. "Whenever it happens. There's no rush - you're still so young." He looked down at the baby in his arm, trying to imagine how he could be this lucky, and, as always, fighting back the instincts that told him he was going to lose them too, that caring for anything this much was foolhardy. 

"I know," Ember said. "And I don't want her to hurry into anything before she's ready." He had evidently learned a lot about how to deal with Pearl, and everything always went better when she was convinced that something had been her own decision, even when her consort had been gently encouraging her in that direction for ages. 

Rain must have swallowed a mouthful of soup too quickly, because he started coughing and spit most of it over Moon's arm. "Oh," he said, and Ember passed him a scrap of cloth so that he could wipe the broth off himself and the baby. 

"Maybe that's enough for you, hm?" said Ember, holding his hand out for Rain, who grabbed tightly onto his finger and giggled. Moon looked at that grip, at the way they were smiling at each other, and even though he knew it was just something babies did, probably as a self-preservation technique to keep them from falling out of trees or off of whoever was carrying them, he felt a little pang of jealousy. Ember knew so much more about Raksura children - what if the fledglings liked him better? It sounded foolish even to Moon himself, but still, he worried about being a good father to them. 

Ember took Rain and placed him back in the pile of furs, gathering up Fern. "Do you want me to hold her and you take a turn feeding?" he asked hopefully.

"No," Moon said, and immediately knew that he'd hurt Ember's feelings. He added, "Maybe with Solace. Fern is a little temperamental." 

"All right," said Ember, seeming to accept that. Moon got Fern settled, holding her more upright so that she would be less likely to spit up, and Ember sat back down across from him. "Just before I left Emerald Twilight," the young consort said, "Flame had a clutch. I was sad to miss spending time with them. They're so cute when they're this age."

Moon didn't really have a good frame of reference for what Raksura considered cute, but he did think that the babies were small and helpless and frighteningly fragile. With the Sky Copper clutch, even though they were young, they'd been bigger than this, less utterly defenceless. Moon had relatively little experience with babies before his own were born, other than the few others that had been born since they moved into the mountain-tree colony, and he found them more anxiety-provoking than cute. But he did have to admit he found himself smiling when they smiled at him, or making happy noises when they did likewise. Maybe that was cute? 

"I think her scales are starting to change color," Ember said, smiling at Fern, who stuck out her tongue in return, dripping broth on Moon's tunic. "She's developing a bit more of a blue tint, on her stomach there, see?"

Moon glanced down and saw the blue undertones beneath her dark bronze scales. Now Ember was noticing things about his babies he hadn't even picked up on yet? "How long will it take for them to change all the way?"

Ember shrugged. "It could be a month or so. It usually happens gradually." He offered Fern another mouthful of broth and she grabbed the spoon with both tiny hands, pulling it out of his grip and spilling its contents onto Moon, who sighed. "Sorry," Ember said, retrieving the spoon over Fern's protests. 

"It's okay," Moon said. "I told you this one was trouble." He tickled Fern's belly and made her laugh, a sweet, bubbling coo. "She's stubborn, and Cloud is shy, and Sapphire is always watching, taking everything in... Solace is a cuddler, and Rain is an explorer, always wanting to go new places."

Ember smiled. "It's amazing how much personality you can see in them at such a young age. Most people would just see five adorable little fledglings, but you seem like you already know them as people."

Moon hadn't thought of it like that. "I guess I've been spending a lot of time getting to know them." He stroked Fern's scales gently. 

"They're very attached to you," Ember agreed, glancing over at the squirming pile of babies. "Look, they're trying to get close to you."

Moon looked over and saw to his surprise that Cloud and Solace had managed to roll or crawl their way out of the furs and most of the way over to his side. Moon reached down and picked them up, and Cloud hung onto him as if for dear life, while Solace clambered up his arm, making her way into the crook so that she could nestle there with a satisfied sigh. "I didn't forget about you two," Moon told them, smiling at their persistence. 

Maybe it was just because they were hungry, but Moon thought it was possible Ember was right - the babies did want to be close to him. While he usually thought that Ember knew more about these matters than he did, he also knew that Ember could present things in a way that was designed to make the person he was talking to feel better - it was just what he did, as a good consort. That didn't change the way his heart seemed to surge when Cloud dug his little claws into his arm to hold on tighter, or when Solace wriggled with happiness just to be held by him. 

He juggled things around so that he could keep holding both Cloud and Solace until Fern's feeding was done, and then shifted around for Cloud's turn. He did manage to remember that Ember had wanted to have a turn holding one of them, so he passed Solace over to him for her turn to be fed, and she seemed content to stay there as long as she could see Moon.

Finally the pot was empty, all the fledglings were drowsy with full bellies, and Moon and Ember were mostly covered in broth and babies. "I think I might need a nap after that," Ember said. "Or a bath, and then a nap."

"So you don't want to help feed them again tomorrow?" Moon asked.

Ember chuckled. "I didn't say that! Of course I'll help."

When Stone decided it was quiet enough, he came back to the consorts' bower, where he found Moon and Ember both lying there exhausted with several babies asleep on their chests. "This is why we let the Arbora handle the messy parts," he muttered under his breath, but smiled fondly.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [naryrising](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/naryrising) if you want to ask questions, make requests, or chat!


End file.
